‘Wow. I am in awe and stunned at the level of performances tonight,’ were the words of Mrs Kyle, Head of the Girls’ Division at Bolton School, after this year’s May Serenade. She thanked parents for supporting their children through lessons and hundreds of hours of practice over the year and the School’s Music Teachers for their skill in guiding them but she reserved her biggest accolades for the pupils themselves. In what is always an emotional evening, she bade farewell and good luck to the Year 13 leavers who were making their last musical performance in the school’s Great Hall.
The evening had begun dramatically with the joint Senior Orchestra offering up Strauss’s Overture Die Fledermaus and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Dubinushka. This was quickly followed by the girls’ Brass Ensemble’s performance of Renaissance Dances. Marissa Hollinghurst, the School’s Most Promising Musician of the Year, played Lamento on the organ and the angelic voices of the Lower School Choir sang I’ll Be There. The Tuned Percussion Ensemble performed an arresting version of Abba’s Thank You for the Music before the Accidentals impeccably delivered Lennon and McCartney’s Yesterday.
Alexia Howarth, who earlier in the year won the Girls’ Division’s Outstanding Musician of the Year award, performed a confident and note-perfect version of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You. The girls’ Senior Choir followed up with Waving Through a Window before the Jazz Ensemble delivered a foot-tapping Sing, Sing, Sing.
After Mrs Kyle had made the Musician of the Year awards, the School’s joint Chamber Choir closed out the serenade with Stevie Wonder’s uplifting Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing and Sam Smith’s Never Knew I Needed.
Watch the May Serenade in its entirety.
You can view below a gallery of photos from the night: 
